Tobin J. Kitten, 1996-2009

Goodbye, little friend. We miss you.

Tobin’s liver cancer finally got the better of him. He passed away last Tuesday, June 23.

Photo from December, 2003.

Comics review: Tales of the Dinosaur No. 1

Creators: Robert A. Nelson, Mark A. Nelson, Michael Russick
Date: 1983
Publisher: Grazing Dinosaur Press

This self-published, black and white, magazine-size comic is basically 3 guys from Illinois doing their version of Heavy Metal. It contains 3 stories written and drawn by each creator and 3 full-page gag strips by one of them. All three artists work in a sci-fi/fantasy vein and draw in a detailed pen-and-ink style. Throughout the comic there’s an element of absurdity and mild self-parody, but it’s not clear to me whether it’s self-awarely intentional or not.

“Parts Paul!” by Robert A. Nelson is a sci-fi fantasia set on the planet “Jane Eyre II” and involves an “off-world trouble shooter” named Donald Fox (I don’t know who “Paul” is) who is summoned to disarm a biological WMD which arrives in the form of a crash-landed, booby-trapped missile. The story ends on a cliffhanger. The visuals and story are both full of baroque, nonsequitur detail — the artwork is like a cross between Moebius and Theo Ellsworth — including steampunkish military uniforms, greebly technology and a bow-tie-wearing alien sidekick named Zunt. “There and Back” is drawn by Michael Russick in a bigfoot Vaughn Bodé-influenced style and involves an explorer and his robot pal running into trouble with an indigenous life form, while meanwhile in orbit a prisoner makes a daring escape from his captors. Some of the slapstick and action is undercut a bit by some confusing visuals, but there’s some pretty funny dialogue. “Dragonsbane” by Mark A. Nelson is a lovingly rendered knight-vs.-dragon tale which leads up to a twist punchline ending, and the artist’s “Dinosaur Tales” strips lavish lush illustration on some groaner talking-dinosaur jokes, which somehow makes them funnier.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this idiosyncratic used-bookstore find, but I enjoy being perplexed by it. Google searching turns up no information about the title nor any subsequent issues; Mark Nelson seems to be the only contributor who continued in comics. For now it remains a curious and rather mysterious artifact.

Update: Mark Nelson emerges from the mists of the internet to leave a comment with some great background info! Check out his recent work at Grazing Dinosaur Press.

Blempglorf

Where is this word “blempglorf” from? Why has it emerged into consciousness from the unknown corners of memory? Why are there currently only 4 search results for it in Google (until this page gets indexed)? My only hope is that someone with the answer (to the first question, at least) finds this post and leaves a comment.

Winner/Loser

Analyzing the presidential campaign by looking at the candidates’ current status on Twitter:

Obama: Triumphant looking icon, smiling broadly in classic looking-to-the-horizon pose, celebrating important endorsement.

McCain: Turned away in shadowy profile, whining about the media. Waaah! Also doesn’t know how to fit his message in 140 characters. FAIL

The GOP is really a bunch of crybabies when things aren’t going their way. Even with Obama’s strong lead in the polls I’m still somewhat paranoid about the Republicans stealing the election, especially after hearing Mark Crispin Miller on the radio this morning. Even if Miller is an alarmist, Obama should spend that $150 million he raised last month on sending an army of lawyers and watchdogs to oversee every vote in every precinct with a Republican election official because I seriously wouldn’t put anything past those effers.

Yoda sketchbook: thumbs up, says Lucasfilm

Check me out all up on the official Star Wars blog with my Yoda sketchbook. This is one for the geek-out highlight reel of my life, folks.

Post-debate dream

I had a dream last night in which the Democrats, instead of Obama, were fielding the Democratic equivalent of Sarah Palin: a female candidate with little-to-no experience and inexplicable popularity among “the base.” This candidate was the wife of a Congressman and seemed earnest and not as clueless as Palin, but it still seemed like a monumentally unwise choice and all I could think was “What happened to Obama? They dumped Obama for this??” Needless to say I felt very uneasy when I woke up.

It was a good solid debate. I’m both looking forward to and dreading watching Joe Biden moidalize Palin in the VP debate next week; looking forward for the obvious reasons, dreading because Palin makes me want to vomit in panic.

Star signs: rating my iTunes library, part 1

So I’m doing this thing where I’m listening to every track in my iTunes library with a play count of zero, alphabetically by album title, and rating them with the iTunes 5-star system. Since I have 41.5 days worth of music (and comedy etc.) in there, and most of it’s unlistened-to (in iTunes; some of it I’ve heard on CD many times, but it still counts for this project), it’s going to take me a while. Here are the average scores of the albums so far (10 days of sporadic listening):

• Stereolab – ABC Music: 4.3 stars (this might be skewed a little high)
• Danielle Howle – About to Burst: 2.25 stars
• The Winter Blanket – Actors and Actresses: 3 stars
• Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 – Admonishing the Bishops EP: 3.75 stars
• Various Artists – The Adventure Club Sessions: 2.47 stars
• Adventures in Stereo – Adventures in Stereo: 3.39 stars (I would score the album higher than this; it’s greater than the sum of its parts)
• Aerial M – Aerial M: 3 stars
• Sugar Plant – After After Hours: 3.17 stars
• The Bird & The Bee – Again And Again And Again And Again EP: 3.25 stars
• David Cross – Ainsley McTree (bootleg): 3.33 stars (I think I’m missing at least one track from this)
• Various Artists – AIR LateNightTales: 2.5 stars
• Guided by Voices – Alien Lanes: 3.8 stars
• Human Television – All Songs Written by Human Television: 4.14 stars
• Kanda – All the Good Meetings Are Taken: 2.82 stars

I think the outcome of all this will be that anything under 3 stars gets deleted. Sorry there’s no links or anything; you’ve got Google. I’ll post periodic updates.

I Make Friends With All Cats

Based on my cat pictures on Flickr I got asked to join this blog as a contributor:

http://imakefriendswithallcats.blogspot.com/

It’s a great blog and I’m honored they invited me but I barely can keep up with my own blog here. Go check them out though.

Got it on the first guess

The answer to the question is Matador.

Yoda sketchbook: David B., Ivan Brunetti, Dan Clowes

Click through for more info and comments.

 

Bonus: Dan Clowes signs our copy of Ghost World: Special Edition:

More Yodas here.